Vista to XP - Advice needed

Hello,Well my Dad got some new computers last year (Dell Vostro 420 Quad Core, 4GB) and everything is running (oddly for Vista) rather smoothly.

Only problem hes had is slow first time network server access.

Anyway, he has been looking out for a certain program to some important task in the office and the maker has come out and said "We do not support Vista Home Premium so you must get Vista Business or XP"

Im a huge fan of XP myself, Im an audio engineer and it just wins hands down but my Dad is an accountant, so the situation is rather different.

From what I understand about Vista upgrades are

Home Premium to Business requires full reinstall, no in place install offered. Am I right?

If thats the case XP seems an attractive option since it would require the same process.

My Dads old machines are also Dells and we still have the XP CD from them so it should be a simple (free) case of using their product keys?

With Windows 7 popping up is it really worth spending money on Vista?

And the main question

How in the name of all thats holy can an application not run on Home Premium but run on Business?

This decision has alot riding on it, computer downtime, possible future problems so Id really appreciate some opinions on what should be done.

everything is running (oddly for Vista) rather smoothly. I know plenty of small companies that have upgraded to Vista with no problems at all, and my own office now runs Vista on all six computers, plus three laptops. There haven't been any problems at all.

I'm slightly puzzled about this software problem - are you sure that the software company has said their program will not run in Vista, and not simply that they won't provide support for the Home premium version?

Is this a mainstream product?

I certainly wouldn't downgrade these machines to Windows XP unless there's a very good reason, and you certainly can't use the OEM serial keys from other machines to install it on these new ones - you'll be in contravention of the licence terms if you try.

I suggest that your father questions the software company more closely about their product. If it will run in the business version of Vista it should run in Home premium.

As an audio engineer Vista is horrible, as my main everyday OS (email, interwebbing etc) it works grand mostly, but then at the same time its horrible some days. Whether an OS works well or not is very subjective at best, depends on useage and what not so for me I have good reason to hate it but again for yourself you could love it.

For my father on the otherhand, I made sure the machines were powerful to cope with any Vista bloatedness that i have come across.

This product I believe is main stream.

I am planning to test one Vostro with a dual boot of Vista and the XP from the old Dell merely to see how well it runs. If it does as good as XP has served him then Ill send for the Dell downgrade media.

The company has been severly question and been told that any upgrade(to Business) or downgrade(to XP) be subsidsed due to the odd nature of the program not working with Vista Home premium.

Talks have begun between my father and the company. No answers have been given as to why the software cant run on Vista Home Premium yet.

To answer your question:Quite simply with Vistas bloating features and bugs, all of which combined with a great difficulty in stripping down the OS, avoiding/fixing bugs results in performance issues for musicians using a PC as their Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). DAW users are very much put off by Vista. Windows XP has proven itself to be solid and efficient as a DAW’s and as well as live venue machines. This is made possible by the ease of stripping down unneeded features.

Now, taking software that needs a huge amount of system resources to run effectively into the mix (effects, signal processors) Vista quite simply has too many resource overheads for people to deal with/get rid of. This can be offset by buying a powerful machine, but what’s the point in a dual core 2.4ghz with 4GB of ram running Vista 32bit when you can have a recourse frugal stripped down XP 32bit running the same spec? Then taking the Windows vs Mac debate, if all there was was Vista, Apple would win hands down in my opinion.

A further point which on its own wouldn’t have killed Vista for most but just adds to the list of problems is Vistas new audio architecture. This made software developers slow to respond as a rewrite was needed.

Vista 64 bit and XP 64 bit is an interesting area however, not many have taken the plunge into this area, and some of who have haven’t been ecstatic. Windows 7 in a 64 bit config will be a very interesting development to look at from the sound/audio engineers, PC musician and DAW users.

A final point to take into account is hardware. Using a firewire interface for Vista for me personally is absolute hell! Tiny power options, UAC’s, the above mentioned bloat cause headache after headache with audio drop outs etc.

I did a straight comparison with XP and Vista using the same software (at least the software I could get working on both OS’s) on my laptop and XP won hands down.

In my DAW setup I am using XP SP3. SP3 now that I mention it was a rather funny thing, it offered, although marginally a boost in performance.So, Vista from the point of view of an audio engineer etc. is generally a horrible OS.

“Given that such a small proportion of musicians have so far migrated to Vista, some are beginning to panic about what will happen after this date (end of support for XP), and some DAW builders have been considering stockpiling XP licenses before the cutoff date, so they can still offer XP as a system option........ Fortunately, Microsoft will be carrying on with XP Product Activations until April 2014. If Vista or it’s successor haven't won over musicians by then, I suspect we'll all be running Macs anyway!”

FE ive got to say i bought Vista Ultimate 64 Bit & i'm so dissapointed with it ive got it on Ebay & going to put XP 64 on it!

The PC came with Vista Ultimate 32 bit but i spent £180 upgrading it to the 64 bit as i was advised for such a pc that is spec'd up like mine that it would be much smoother & faster on the 64 bit version, so i did & ive had nothing but issues with it!" ive just installed SP2 for it & ive seen VERY little changes indeed!